3.19.23 - Respectable Sins Part 3

Open your Bibles to Galatians 5:16. •We’re in the third week of our “Respectable Sins” series. This morning, we will consider How to Fight Sin. •We will consider some practical steps in the fight against the remaining sin in our lives. •We know that, though the dominion of sin has been taken away, sin still remains in our lives. We do not have to give in, but the reality is, we are still weak, sinful desires still remain, and the temptation to sin still presents itself to us. •We know this because the Word of God tells BELIEVERS time and time again to put to death the deeds of the flesh, repent of our sin, and things of that nature. •And we know this by experience, don’t we? Every Christian knows that he/she still sins and has remaining corruption within them. •So, sin still is a reality for every Christian. And, as John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So then, how do we fight sin? •We learned last week that we have the ability to fight it. We have the ability IN CHRIST to kill sin and say “no” to it. •So, how then are we to practically fight against sin in order to put it to death? •Before we get into particular sins, I want to lay a foundation. And so, I want us to broadly consider some principles about the fight against sin. NOTE: I must say this before I go any further: •If you haven’t been born again, if you have not been converted to Christ, if you have not yet come to the end of yourself and sought the forgiveness of sins through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, then this sermon will be of literally no help to you. •Only those who have been united to Christ by faith, received the forgiveness of sins, and have had the dominion of sin broken in their lives can begin to kill their remaining sin. Remember this: Those who have not yet received Christ by faith are still DEAD IN THEIR SINS AND TRESPASSES. •Those who have not been born again by the Holy Spirit are still SLAVES TO SIN, as Jesus tells us. •Those who have not received the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit cannot kill sin. Those who have not received a new nature in Christ are still under sin’s power. •And such people who are still in slavery to the tyranny of sin and Satan absolutely cannot truly fight sin. •Only Christ can set you free! Know that for a fact! You cannot free yourself! •To paraphrase John Owen, it is easier for a man with no eyes to see than for a person without the indwelling Holy Spirit to kill sin. It is easier for a deaf man to hear than for someone still dead in sin to kill sin. Hear me: If you have not yet come to Christ in repentance and faith, your business is not killing sin. •Rather, your business is to turn to Christ in faith and be saved from your sins! •Please, listen: Even if you were to work some kind of moral reformation in your life, you’d still be dead in your sins and headed to Hell. •You’d merely be a self-righteous person, attempting to merit salvation from God by your own attempted good works. •And the kicker is this: You may change your external behavior for a season, but your heart will remain unchanged. Sin will still have dominion over you. If there is an unbeliever or false convert among us, know this: You must repent of your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ! •He alone has died to satisfy the wrath of God that you deserve for your sins. •He alone has lived a perfect, sinless life to credit to your account before God. •He alone was raised from the dead to secure your redemption and resurrection on the last day. •Only Christ can save you. So, repent and believe on Him and be saved! •Only when you’ve come to Christ does killing sin become your business. But right now, you have much bigger problems. You have the very wrath of God to deal with. And only receiving Christ by faith will fix your situation of impending damnation. •Turn to Christ and live! But for those of us who have believed on Christ, this sermon is for you. •So let me continue: When you are made aware of sin in your life, what do you do to fight it, kill it, deny it, crucify the flesh? •I think many Christians probably just acknowledge that it is sin, confess to God, ask for forgiveness, and then just try not to do it again by sheer willpower. •I know that’s what I’ve done many times in the past. •But that’s not the way to kill sin. •Yes, discipline will factor in at some point. And there indeed must be attempts to practically obey the Lord and/or flee from sin. •But there is much more to fighting sin than just “trying not to do it again.” So then, let’s consider this morning some biblical directions for fighting sin. •And what’s funny is that they are not all “GO DO THIS” kind of things. •We often think that will be the case. But fighting sin is primarily a spiritual issue. It’s an issue of the heart. For sin begins in the heart. •So, if we are to kill sin, there must be a great measure of INTERNAL warfare as well as external fighting. •We must fight sin by faith. And only then can we begin to attempt any change in our lives. •And ALL OF THIS must be empowered by God working mightily in us by His Holy Spirit. So, brothers and sisters, I hope this sermon is helpful to you. •I want to help you to learn how to fight and kill your sin so that we might all glorify our God who has saved us by His grace. •May God bless the preaching of His Word today to the salvation and sanctification of His People. If you would, and are able, please stand with me now for the reading of the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God. Galatians 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. (PRAY) Our Heavenly Father, We come before you now to ask for your blessing on the preaching of your Holy Word. Please, by your Spirit, make the preaching effectual to the salvation and growth in holiness of your People. Work in us today and change our hearts. Help us to receive your Word with all faith. Help us to believe and obey whatever it is that you’ve said. And help us to see your great mercy and love given to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us a sight of Him. For that will drive sin out of our hearts. We ask these things in Jesus’ Name and for His sake. Amen. 1.) One of the blessings that comes from our Union with Jesus Christ by faith is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. •Brothers and sisters, God Himself dwells in us. •This is true of every single person who has turned to Christ in faith. •We have been made new in Christ and God the Holy Spirit dwells in us. We have received this gift from Jesus. And the Holy Spirit dwells in us and does many things to us and for us. •He guides us. He convicts us of sin. He empowers us to obey God. He points us to Christ over and over again. He opens the Scriptures to us. He works more and more faith in us. He conforms us to the image of our Lord Jesus. •He works holiness in our hearts. He is the Spirit of Holiness, after all. He does the work of sanctification in us. He teaches us greater obedience and love for the God who has saved us. •He does this for every single believer. And what a blessing He is to us! Again, God Himself dwells in us. And it is in light of this universal truth for every believer that that the Apostle Paul says, “…walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” •Paul tells us to “walk by the Spirit.” •This means that we must YIELD TO HIM. We are to be led by Him from moment to moment. •And this isn’t some charismatic, waiting for some kind of internal prompting before we do anything each day. This isn’t some kind of mystical experience or livershiver that we’re to look for. •Rather, walking by the Spirit means to LISTEN TO HIM. We are to submit to Him. Submit to His Word that He inspired, THE BIBLE. •We are to believe Him. Believe what He has said to us in Scripture. •We are to allow ourselves to be pushed by Him to look to Christ each day for grace and help and hope and assurance of salvation. •We are to incline ourselves to obey the inner workings of the Spirit in our hearts, prompting us to repentance, submission, obedience, and love for God. •We are to look to the Spirit for grace to help us to live a godly life that honors the One who has saved us. •We are to submit ourselves to Him and, as much as lies within us, allow Him to work grace in our hearts so that we yield His fruit. •Walking by the Spirit, as one commentator said, is to listen to the Spirit speaking externally in the Scriptures. And also listen to Him speaking internally and prompting you toward holiness in accordance with the Word. And Paul says that if we will do this, we “will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” •If we will be led by, if we will walk after, if we will yield to and submit to the Holy Spirit, we will not give in to our sinful desires! •Christian, I want you to see that this a glorious promise given to you! •Would you like to kill sin in your life? Would you like to put to death the deeds of the flesh? Would you like to grow in godliness? •If you would, then you must “walk by the Spirit.” •How good of God to order things this way! If we will submit to Him, we will not give in to sin. But notice something very important: Paul does not say that we will not have any sinful desires or have to fight against sin. •Rather, Paul says that we WILL NOT GRATIFY the desires of the flesh. We will not gratify sinful desires. •Christian perfection is not being taught here. •Paul’s point is that if we yield to the Spirit of God, though sin remains in us, though sinful desires may rise up in our hearts, IT WILL NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER US. •If we will only yield to the Holy Spirit, we can fight sin as it rears its ugly head in our hearts, and we can DENY IT. •If we will only submit to the Spirit, we can be godly and holy and refuse to give in to sinful desires and go further in sin. •We can kill those first stirrings of sin in our hearts. We can spot it and refuse it. •Those first stirrings of sin are still sinful and must be repented of, for sure. And we will have to fight that fight until we die and are glorified and no longer have a sinful nature to contend against. •BUT, while we are still on earth, we can refuse to gratify our sinful desires. But, again, in order to do that, we must “walk by the Spirit.” We must yield to Him. •So then, what does it practically mean in our daily lives to do that? What does that look like? •Or, in other words, how are we to fight our sin by the power of the Holy Spirit? •And that’s what I want to now dive into. 2.) This first point is very basic. But it is also very important: We must allow ourselves to be convinced of our sin by the Holy Spirit. •The Spirit of God has come into the world to convict the world of sin. •Jesus Christ tells us in John 16:8, “And when He (the Holy Spirit) comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment…” •To convict concerning sin is to CONVINCE men of their sinfulness before God. •So the Holy Spirit is the great revealer of sin. He shows the need for repentance and faith in Christ. He shows the ugliness of sin and how God hates it and how the wicked are judged for it. •And this He does in the heart of every person who comes to know Christ. It is this work of the Spirit that showed us our our guilt and need for Jesus. But it doesn’t stop at conversion. Not at all. The Spirit of God continues to convince even the believer of his or her sin throughout our lives. •And this is a grace of God! He does this so we can forsake our sin and walk in greater holiness and righteousness and glorify our God. •And how does He do this? He does this through the Book that He inspired: The Bible! •Whether preached or read, the Spirit uses His own Word to convince us of our sin. That’s where He reveals to us where we’ve gone wrong and where we need to confess, repent, and turn again to Christ. •This is a supernatural act of God. The Holy Spirit reveals our sin, convinces us of it’s evil, and calls us to repent. Brothers and sisters, for our purposes today, I want to tell you something very important: •You must not harden your conscience or ignore the internal working of the Holy Spirit. •If you are to ever kill sin, you must receive the conviction of sin that Spirit of God gives to you. •We cannot ignore the internal work of the Spirit in our hearts. •Once something is made known to us, once a sin is revealed to us, we can’t simply persist in it. We must own the work of God in us. This means that we cannot attempt to justify our sin. •So many do this, even Christians do this for a season at times, but it is utter foolishness. No sin will ever be killed if we’re attempting to justify why we commit it. Such a person is still in love with that sin. •We must flatly accept whatever the Spirit says in the Word about sin, no matter what the sin is, how culturally acceptable it is, or how habitual it has become in our lives. •We must call sin exactly what the Spirit calls it. •Again, brothers and sisters, do not fight against the work of the Spirit of God! Receive His rebuke! You know, the Proverbs talk often about how the foolish man does not listen to rebuke or reproof or correction, but instead remains in his ways and suffers or perishes. •We must not be such people! We can’t be fools if we are serious about killing the sin in our lives. •We must LISTEN. We must take HEED to God as He pricks our consciences and calls us to the mat for our sin. •We must listen to the internal pangs of conscience. And we must listen to the external calls to repent that He gives us in the Word preached and read. Simply put, we must OWN OUR SIN. •No excuses. Simply admit that you are wicked and are in need of God’s grace. •And don’t just acknowledge that you did or thought wrongly. But acknowledge the root of it all. •The Spirit says in the Word that sin is a matter of the heart. And that means you sin because you are desiring sin in that moment more than you desire to honor the Lord Jesus Christ, who has died for your sins. •Sit and let the weight of that wash over you. Allow the Spirit of God to convict and convince you of the sinfulness of your sin and that your heart has strayed from God. And own what you’ve said by your sin. •As I said two weeks ago, sin is more than just breaking a rule. •You’ve challenged God’s authority over your life. •You’ve attempted to make yourself equal to God. •You’ve called God’s wisdom and goodness a lie. •You’ve called God a liar by refusing to believe His way is best. •You’ve dared God to judge you and shown that, in the moment of sin at least, you did not fear Him. •Let the weight of that sit on your conscience. Be convinced by the Spirit of the sinfulness of your sin. And behold the crucified Christ. Let the Spirit direct you to the God you have sinned against. •But not yet for relief. Rather, look and see Him whom you have sinned against. •He has died to save you and set you free from your sin. •He has shown such mercy and patience toward you. •And would you sin against HIM? Would you sin against such love? •Shall you grieve the Spirit who has opened your eyes to the blessed Lord Jesus? •Shall you disobey the Father who chose you in Christ and sent His Son to die for your sins? •The answer is, “Yes. I have chosen to do those things when I sinned.” •Brothers and sisters, consider the grace you’ve sinned against. Consider the God you’ve sinned against. •This will make every believer see sin rightly and hate it. And it is once we hate the sin that we are in a place to fight and kill it. Submit to what the Spirit says about you and your sin. •Don’t fight, but submit. Own your sin. •And repent of it. Confess it God. Confess it in all it’s ugliness and rebellion. •And look to Christ who has made atonement for it. Receive the forgiveness of sin in the Lord Jesus. •And endeavor in your heart to not commit the sin again. That’s what repentance is, after all: A sincere endeavoring to not return to your sin. •There is grace for you in Christ. Don’t ever forget that. And because of that, we need not fear admitting that we are sinners and have been wrong and have strayed from God in our sin. •But, in order to repent, we must first allow ourselves to be convinced of the wretchedness of our sin. •And so, once again, we cannot fight the Spirit of God or try to justify what we’ve done. We must own the sin. •We must “walk by the Spirit.” 3.) Next, we must PRAY about our sin. •We must ask God, by the Holy Spirit working in us, to strengthen and sanctify us. Prayer is so important in the fight against sin. •Prayer is one of God’s chosen instruments to give us strength as He kindly hears our prayers. •Prayer is the pipe through which the power and grace of God flows from Him to us to enable us to do His will. •SO WE MUST PRAY. We must pray for strength. We must pray for God to change our hearts. We must pray that God would change our affections and cause us to love righteousness and hate the sin we seek to kill. Hear me: We are FOOLS if we try to kill sin apart from prayer. •And why is that? Because without prayer, we are attempting to kill sin in our own strength. •But with prayer, we are appealing to the Almighty God to grant us power by His Spirit to obey Him. •With prayer, we are recognizing our weakness and dependence upon God to do something in us by grace. •Do you think you’re strong enough, do you think you’re so strong that you don’t need God to help you? •Of course not! If you were so strong and morally able, then why did you fall into sin in the first place? •Of course you’re not strong enough. But God will help those who cry out to Him day and night for strength. Brothers and sisters, prayer is often where the battle is either won or lost. •Our strength to fight sin, and the changing of our hearts to hate it, will depend upon how much we are seeking help from God. •Killing sin is a supernatural work. Changing hearts is the work of God alone. We can’t do these things ourselves. We can’t change our tastebuds. How much less can we change our hearts? •And so, we must cry to God for help. You know, in Luke 11:5-13, our Lord Jesus tells us to knock and keep knocking until God helps us. •And He tells us to do so because God will certainly come to our aid and give us every grace of the Holy Spirit that we need. •As Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” •Our kids ask us for help and we help them. How much more will God give us every grace and help from the Spirit if we cry out to Him day and night for help? •Of course He will help us! But we often think that we should only have to pray once or twice about a certain sin and then we throw our hands up and say, •“Well, that’s that, I guess. I just can’t stop. And God isn’t helping me.” •That’s blasphemy! You have been set free from the dominion of sin by virtue of your union with Jesus Christ. And God promises to help you kill remaining sin. •Keep asking! PRAY DILIGENTLY! Pray without ceasing. •Be like Jacob, who wrestled with God, and say, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” •It is in response to persistent prayer that God is most often pleased to work in us. •So keep praying about your sin. Every single day, pray about it! Keeping asking God to change your heart. Keep asking Him to help you obey Him. Keep asking Him to help you to deny your flesh and walk by the Spirit. •He will help you to do it! But most Christians don’t pray as they should. •It’s almost like we want to suck the supernatural out of our religion and are just looking for more things to do with our hands to fight our sin. •We want to look to human wisdom, human effort, and things to do instead of acknowledging that only God can do this in our hearts. •But that’s not how this game works. Heart change is a supernatural act of God. •Strength to deny our flesh, say no to sin, and say yes to God is something that human beings can’t work up in ourselves. •And so, we must appeal to God for those things daily. We must develop a conscious sense of need and dependence upon the Lord. We must pray to the Lord: •“Help me to hate the sin. Help me to love righteousness. Change my heart. Help me to feel the weight of my sin. Help me to remember that Christ has died to forgive and free me from sin. Help me to see Christ as more lovely than sin. Help me to desire your glory more than my temporary pleasure.” •Brothers and sisters, PRAY! Apart from faith and prayer, we’re working in our own strength and nothing will change. •We’ll promise over and over again that we won’t commit that sin again. And we will fall every time. •Or, maybe we’ll modify our behavior externally. But our hearts won’t change. We’ll still love the sin. We’ll still commit it in our hearts. And that is no killing of sin. •And, eventually, it will resurface in our deeds. But what a promise from God in 1 John 5:14-15! “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.” •If we pray according to God’s will, He will do what we’ve asked. •And check this out: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification…” (1 Thessalonians 4:3) •So then, we can pray with all confidence that God will help us to kill our sin and live a holy life. •He promises to answer that prayer. And He is no liar. Brothers and sisters, our Lord said, “…apart from me you can do nothing.” •Without His help that He promises to give us by His Spirit, we can do nothing. •So appeal to Him! Ask Him to grant you strength and grace by His Spirit working in you. And He will do it! •Brothers and sisters, PRAY! 4.) Next, we must look to the Spirit-inspired Word. •We must look to what the Holy Spirit has said about sin and also the promises of God given to us in Christ. •These twins cannot be separated in the fight against sin. •Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” •We must store up the Word of God in our hearts if we are to keep from sinning against our God. And part of this looks like applying relevant passages about our particular sins to our lives. •Finding texts that speak to whatever sin we’re dealing with and thinking on them, meditating on them, memorizing them, praying through them. •There is a world of instruction about every sin in the Scriptures. Both positively and negatively, the Word will teach us about sin. •And maybe you need to sit down with one of your Elders or another mature Christian to help you find these passages of Scripture if you don’t know where to look. •But, also, often by God’s kind Providence, sometimes these things will come across in your ordinary Bible reading or the readings or preaching on the Lord’s Day. •But the point is this: Get the Word in your heart. Get portions of the Word that are especially relevant and helpful to you in dealing with your sin. And commit yourself to thinking and praying through them. Now, this is no magic bullet. But we must get the Word in our hearts in order to have more fuel for the fight against sin. •But how does this work? Well, first, as I’ve touched on already, thinking on the Word will help us to see the sinfulness of sin in general. •And then it will help us to see the sinfulness of our sin in particular. •The Bible helps us to SEE CLEARLY, so we can hate sin and fight it properly. •It helps us to see why we are tempted to sin, what we’re looking for in sin, what we’re not believing about God when we sin, and more. And the Word will also WARN US of the foolishness and danger of sin. •We will see the worldly consequences of sin coming to bear on many people in history. •We’ll see how sin ruins everything. How it destroys fellowship and relationships. How it is the root and source of all suffering and strife. •And that is secondary reason we should not sin. •But it will also remind us that God disciplines His People and that we should fear the rod of God’s correction. •And, in the most extreme case, it will warn us that those who refuse to kill their sin are in danger of Hell because it is those who persist in sin without repentance that prove themselves to be false professors. The Word will also remind us of God’s will for us instead of sin. •It will guide us in what we should do instead of the sin we are tempted to indulge in. •It will not only warn and rebuke us but it will CORRECT us and show us the better way and what to focus on doing instead. In all of these things, the Word will teach us how to ARGUE WITH OURSELVES against the sin. •“Why shouldn’t I commit this sin? Why should I fight it?” •“God hates it. Its an offense against Him. It will hurt others. It will disrupt my fellowship with God. It will destroy me if I do not repent. It will throw mud on the name of Christ. It will make the Devil glad. It will make the unbeliever revile God. God would have me to do this instead.” And many other things will come to mind. •The Word of God will furnish us with many reasons to run from sin and seek to kill it. •It will give us ammunition to argue with ourselves. But that’s not all looking to the Word will do. •It will also remind us of God’s great mercy toward us in Jesus Christ. •And that will incite us to greater obedience and holiness. •The Word of God, even when it talks about our sin, always points us to the Cross of Christ where our sins were taken away. •The whole Book points us to the work of Christ done on our behalf to save us. •It reminds us of His great love for us. •And to know the love of Christ for you is to love Christ more. And to love Christ more is to love sin less. Those things go hand in hand. Both can’t remain in the heart at the same time in the same moment. •So hide the Word in your heart that shows you Christ. More than that, the Word reminds us of all the promises that are ours in Christ. •That our sins are forgiven and we are saved. •That we are free from the dominion of sin and can say NO to sin when it rears it’s ugly head at us. •It reminds us that the Spirit of God dwells within us to empower us to grow in holiness. •It reminds us that God Himself gives us the will and ability to be holy and be what He has made us. •It reminds us that God will finish what He has started in us. That He will not quit working on us. •And it reminds us that our Lord Jesus will never cast us away or grow impatient with us. That, if we will only live at the foot of His Cross by faith, He will never make us leave. He will never wash His hands of us. Brothers and sisters, HIDE THE WORD IN YOUR HEART, that you might not sin against God. •See the arguments against sin in the Word. •And see the Christ who saves you and all the blessings you have in Him that are told in the Word. •And believe them! Take them by faith! That is how you’ll fight. That is how the Word helps you in the fight. ILLUSTRATE: In a street fight, people sometimes will “pack their fist.” They’ll put a roll of quarters in their hand. It’s called a “fist load.” •It makes the fist a little harder and heavier. And so, it makes you hit a little harder. •Brothers and sisters, take the Word of God and pack your fist. Take the arguments of Scripture and the promises given to you in Christ, and put them in your hand so you’ve got something heavy to swing with. •God into the battle with hands full of faith in what God has said in His Word. And fight by faith. 5.) And then you must DO. You must practically apply the Spirit-inspired Word, by His grace. •We don’t just sit back, pray, believe, and do nothing. That’s not even really possible. •“Let go and let God” is a myth. •True faith ACTS. True faith is a LIVING FAITH. •And so, praying and believing, we submit to the Spirit of God’s work in our lives. •As Paul says, we must “WALK by the Spirit.” And so, there is a time for action. •Having sin revealed to us by the Spirit, being convinced of it, repenting of it, praying about it, looking to the Word about it, we now must also DO SOMETHING. •We must OBEY. And this requires effort. And a certain amount of discipline. •It will not always come easy. But we must obey. •The Apostle Paul often says, “Put off…and put on.” •This means that there is effort involved. We must put off our sin and put on righteousness. •We must make a conscious choice to obey God instead of sinning. We must make a conscious decision and effort to say “no” to sin and “yes” to our God through faith in Christ. •This is where, even if we still desire the sin to some degree, we deny ourselves and refuse to “gratify the desires of the flesh.” •The desires may still be there to some degree. But we choose to deny them, by God’s Spirit helping us. We must choose to put on righteousness. •Instead of merely trying to stop sinning, we are to be led by the Spirit into practicing what is GOOD AND RIGHT. •Hear me: If you’re trying to only “not sin” and you’re not attempting to replace sin with virtue, you’re not going to get far. •To truly kill sin is to put righteousness in it’s place. •Your heart is a vacuum. Fill it with righteousness and righteous actions and thoughts! Allow me to give one example for the sake of time: If you want to lose your temper and be angry, refuse to give in. •Go in the other room and calm down. •Commit yourself to prayer right in the moment. •Deny yourself. PUT OFF THE SIN. Choose to refuse to blow up, be harsh, be petty, or seek revenge. •And instead, forgive, be patient, be gentle, be kind. •Some would say, “But I would be acting ‘fake’ because I’m actually angry.” •NO YOU WOULDN’T! You’d be choosing righteousness! You’d be putting off and putting on! You would be angry but sinning not!You’d be denying your flesh and refusing to gratify the desires of your flesh. You’d be walking by the Spirit! •You’re not “fake” when you choose righteousness instead of sin. •Actually, you’re being more “yourself” than you know, because you are a new creature in Christ. •You’re actually being false to what God has done in you by uniting you to Christ when you choose to sin. There are many more examples of putting off and putting on that could be given. •But the point has been made: We must, with much effort, resist our sin and choose to what it is right and pleasing to the Lord. •And THIS WE CAN DO! Why? Because the Spirit of God leads us, is in us, we have been freed from sin in Christ, and God will empower us by His Spirit, through His Word and prayer, to OBEY HIM. And I believe that often God is pleased to use our attempts to obey Him to further change our hearts. •Though maybe we choose the right thing, but we kind of didn’t want to, I believe that God will bless and use that to promote further change in our desires in the future. •Example: Praying for enemies is hard. Sometimes the prayer is half-hearted because you don’t yet love your enemy. But I’ve seen the Lord use obedient prayer for enemies to change hearts and cause us to love them. Brothers and sisters, practically apply the Word of the Spirit to your lives. •And choose to obey. 6.) So we’ve seen that we ought to own our sin, repent, pray, look to the Word, and attempt to obey. •And those are all good. Those are all helpful. Those are all biblical. Those are all part of what it means to be led by the Spirit of God. •But let me now tell you the highest and best help in fighting your sin: LOOK TO CHRIST. •The Spirit of God always directs us to the Son of God. So be led by the Spirit to turn your eyes to Christ. Deal with your sin in the context of the Gospel. •Remind yourself of the Gospel every single day. •Jesus Christ is your righteousness. He has lived a perfect and sinless life in your place. •Christ is your sacrifice. He has dealt with your sin and the penalty for it by suffering your place and dying on the Cross to satisfy the wrath of God that was against you for your sins. •Christ was raised from the dead as proof that God accepts Him in your place and you are saved by faith alone in Him alone. •Fight your sin. Yes, do that. But only do so remembering that Christ saves you. And Christ has dealt with your sin for you. Your failure, your sin, no longer condemns you, for Christ was condemned for you. •You will never be separated from God, because you are united to Christ by faith. And He will never be separated from God. •You have been adopted by God through faith in Jesus Christ. And God will never take you out of the living room and back into the courtroom. •You are His child forever through Christ. •He will never leave or forsake you. He will never grow weary of you. God loves you! For He loves Christ! And you are IN CHRIST! Know this: We do not fight sin in servile fear that if we don’t get it together, God is going to cut us off and cast us away into Hell. •No, we fight sin in the knowledge that Christ has atoned for all our sin already and we are accepted by God in Him. •And NOW WE WANT TO PLEASE THE GOD WHO HAS LOVED AND SAVED US. •We fight sin because we love God. And we love God because He has saved us in Christ. Oh, brothers and sisters, let this encourage you and put gratitude in your hearts! •Let this truth give you the desire to deal with your sins at the deepest level! •Knowing the love of God for you in Christ Jesus is how you will fight your sin. •Because that is what will make you love God more and love sin less. Remember that only a stronger affection can drive out another affection from your heart. •If there is a sin you desire, only a stronger desire can drive it out of your heart. •And when we remember how God has loved us by saving us in Christ, our love for Him will grow. And that love for God will drive out love for sin. •Again, we fight sin because we love God. We hate sin because we love God. •We are not trying to earn or save ourselves. We are responding to God in LOVE for Him. •As 1 John 4:10 reminds us, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” •Oh, if we believe that, if we live in that, if we delight in that, if we get that into our hearts, we will not love or desire sin like we used to. •Our heart simply won’t have the room for it because the love of God will have filled us to the brim. Brothers and sisters, it is by sustained, long-term fellowship with Christ that we will kill our sin. •Meditating on His love for you, the beauty of His holiness, the goodness of His righteousness, how He has freed you from sin, what He promises to reward you by grace, how He has been faithful to you, how He is merciful to you, how He has suffered for you, how He will never abandon you, how He is patent with you. •It is by fellowship with Him, remembering all His goodness and glory and love for you and living in it that you will kill your sin. Christian, be in communion with Christ. •Feed on Him by faith. Receive His Word. Rejoice in Him. •Look to Him always. •That is how sin and all it’s temptation and allure will be exposed as the waste of time and wretchedness that it is. •For Christ will outshine it all. •When we hold up Christ next to our sin, we will see clearly that it is He who is lovely and desirable. •And if we will do this, Christ will win every time. •The question is, will we look to Him? Or will we look somewhere else? Through deep fellowship with Christ, we will take Joseph’s words and make them our own: •“How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against Jesus?” (Genesis 39:9 modified) 7.) So then, as I come to a close, let me say one final thing: Killing sin and growing in holiness is not a quick or simple thing. •None of what I’ve said today is any kind of magic bullet. •Rather, all that has been said must be diligently applied throughout our entire lives. •We are not running a sprint. •We are running a marathon that lasts until we die. But take heart: Your Lord Jesus is patient with you, will help you, and will never cast you away. •Walk by His Spirit. Have fellowship with Him. Seek Him in the Word and Prayer. •Look to Him always as you wage war on your sin. May God give us the grace to do so. •Amen.